A Duke's Temptation (30 page)

She would forever be his most devoted follower.

 

 

 

His broadsword flew up as if to spear a star. Power coursed through his veins, from whom or what he would ponder afterward, if he survived. Rapid. Cross blades. Lunge. Did he see lightning? Parry his rival’s amateur thrusts. The cool air invigorated him.

He heard Kirkham panting between movements. The bugger showed a rudimentary skill. Point to the breast.

Play with him awhile.

He half wished that Lily would see what he could do in an earnest duel. That was selfish. Vanity. Better that she not witness the end of this.

He didn’t know how it would end. Not knowing, defending Lily, gave him the edge.

Kirkham might have gotten away with murder in London. He might have killed others, disposed of them with the same callous disregard as he had the man whose death Lily had witnessed. He was a bully who mistreated women and took advantage of his friends. A desperate adversary who fought for what was wrong.

He had never fought the combined forces of a duke, an exiled earl, and a charismatic necromancer who wielded a magic wand.

“
Who
are you?” Kirkham asked in a hollow voice. Sweat trailed down his temples. “No bloody nobleman fences like this. It is . . . ungodly.”

“You drew Lily’s blood.”

He grunted. “She’s only a woman.”

“Horrible choice of words.”

“Words?” Kirkham echoed in disbelief. “You talk of words when I mean to kill you? You’re mad.”

“I know.” Samuel nodded. “I know. It can’t be helped.”

“There are rumors that question your manhood,” Kirkham taunted, staggering as he swung his sword in an arc.

“Are there?” Samuel laughed. Had he invented them? Damned if he could recall at the moment. But then, Lily had repeated the same slander about Lord Anonymous.

Kirkham’s eyes mirrored contempt. “You . . .”

He had run out of breath. He needed whatever energy he could gather now for defense. His shoulders hunched; his stare became unfocused.

Samuel felt his own strength challenged. He had lost awareness of Lily. There was only the other sword that sought an opening in his chest.

He beat again and again until Kirkham fell back, barely sidestepping a lunge. Kirkham retreated until his heel caught in a murder hole. Timing. Samuel forced him against the crenellated wall.

I’ve never killed a man except with a pen
, he thought.
Could
he do it? Blood. The man had drawn Lily’s blood.

He hooked his sword under Kirkham’s left knee, notching the blade to the joint. “This is going to be painful,” he said with a grimace. It would not kill him, but it might make Kirkham wish it had.

He set his teeth. But as he jerked the blade, anticipating the pop of broadcloth, flesh, and fibrous cartilage, Kirkham pulled a pistol from the back of his waistband. His bloodstained hands shook as he leveled the gun at Samuel’s chin.

Samuel, knowing how much Kirkham liked to play with guns, was not entirely surprised. He twisted the sword through Kirkham’s knee, wrenching it out and up so that the blade hit the pistol from the man’s wrist. Samuel caught it in his left hand before it fell. Renwick’s hand.

He braced himself and squeezed the trigger. He detested loud noises. They reminded him of missed deadlines and the clocks that went off daily at home.

The shot echoed between the towers and the merlons and across the moor.

Death made a mess he would not forget.

He averted his face.

He noticed Lily from the corner of his eye. Emmett was shielding her at the top of the stairs. Samuel could feel both of them staring. He planted his legs apart and stepped over the body, the broadsword resting across his hips.

He was sure he looked like a predator over his kill. All he cared about was keeping Lily and Emmett from seeing what was left of Kirkham’s face.

Disgusting.

He swallowed back a surge of bile and brushed the gristly parts from his shirtfront. He hoped never to enact a death scene in such accurate detail again. He preferred romance, adventure, a political editorial, anything to this.

He understood now what Wickbury had been trying to remind him all along. Or what Samuel had been trying to remind himself. A hero had to come through in the end. There existed villains in the world who could not be saved by humankind. And some, like Kirkham, had to be stopped.

The crisis that had been building between Wickbury and Renwick had been only a manifestation of the conflict inside Samuel. He wanted to believe the best of everyone. Sadly not everyone wanted to be redeemed.

But all that could be pondered at another time.

Samuel intended to change and hold Lily for the rest of the night.

S
amuel paid for Captain Jonathan Grace’s funeral in London. He paid for the hearse and six black horses, the mourning coaches, the cloaks for those in the procession. At first, when he was notified by the Plymouth innkeeper of Grace’s death, he was uncertain what the captain’s family would think of him. After all, Samuel would soon stand in their son’s place and marry the woman Jonathan had lost.

He was relieved—moved, in fact—when the elder Lord Grace asked him to serve as pallbearer, along with Lily’s brother. She was upset and Samuel understood her sorrow. Jonathan Grace had made a mistake and paid the ultimate price in attempting to redeem himself.

Lily’s father, Sir Leonard Boscastle, also attended the funeral. Afterward, he invited Samuel to a private dinner at the Park Lane mansion that belonged to Chloe’s eldest brother, Grayson Boscastle, the Marquess of Sedgecroft. It was one of the finest homes in Mayfair. Samuel and Sir Leonard sat alone at the table. Lily had been taken off by the other ladies in the family, many of whom she had not met until now. Samuel’s sister had decided to stay at the castle, daunted by the long journey to London.

“I despised you when I learned of your repute and that Lily was working in your home,” Sir Leonard said. Neither man had eaten much of the sumptuous meal. Samuel’s stomach had curdled when the marquess’s senior footman brought a tureen of turtle soup to the table for the first course. He ate a sprig of parsley and drank innumerable glasses of white wine.

It would not help his cause to drop drunk at Sir Leonard’s feet. Nor would it disprove his reputation. Then, at some time during dessert, he realized that Lily’s father was outdrinking him two glasses to one.

It was likely that neither of them would remember much of this conversation in the morning. They would wake up with hammering skulls. Samuel would not write a word, blaming the wine, the intensity of making a good impression, the relief that Lily’s family had forgiven him for taking her away. By far the deepest relief he felt was when her father asked Lily’s forgiveness at the end of the evening and admitted how miserable it had been since she had left home.

 

 

 

The wedding party overflowed the Park Lane mansion. A procession of carriages blocked the streets of Mayfair for hours. Lily would have been at her wits’ end had she not learned a few things recently about what mattered in life, and why it was the small moments and not the grand gestures one tended to treasure most.

She stood, her father giving her away, her mother dabbing her cheeks as the ceremony began. Lily loved her dress, another of Chloe’s inspired creations—glimmering gold silk with a flowing down-the-back veil of white lace. She wore the diamond-and-pearl necklace that Samuel had given her the night before. A cap of small white feathers had been attached to the bridal cape, a poignant reminder of the costume she had been wearing when she met Samuel.

“The only thing you will shed this time,” Chloe assured her, “will be tears of happiness.”

Lily’s eyes did grow misty as she exchanged vows with the Duke of Gravenhurst. Samuel looked divine in well-tailored trousers and a long-tailed dark blue coat. For now she held his total attention. There were no pens, books, or unfinished manuscripts in the chapel to lure him away. She realized that she would lose him again from time to time when they returned to St. Aldwyn House. But she entered this marriage with full knowledge of who her husband was and the happiness she could expect in their life together.

 

 

 

Samuel had wavered between wanting a private wedding at home and a traditional ceremony that included Lily’s relatives. Tradition won out. There were so many Boscastles in the banqueting hall that Lily’s family filled most of the chapel. Samuel had invited a few friends himself. It satisfied his principles to know that a member of Parliament was sitting between a pair of milkmaids. He laughed when, during the wedding breakfast, Lord Philbert asked if Samuel had sold tickets to his own nuptials.

“I might have if I’d thought of it,” Samuel said. “But you remember what I told you before. That young lady in the white dress and feathered cap has swept me off my feet. I have difficulty thinking properly when she is in the room.”

Lord Philbert sighed. “Lily is very lovely. I shall take credit for introducing you to her. Not that I’m convinced I did her any great favor. Does she understand what it means to be married to a writer?”

Samuel looked at his wife, who looked right back at him from the bride’s table, where she presided with not only her parents and brother, but also with her cousin Chloe and Viscount Stratfield.

“Lily knows me better than anyone.”

“Good. Then I shall approach her when your next book is late.”

“Take my word on it, Philbert. The duchess considers it her duty to keep me on task.”

“Congratulations, Samuel,” Philbert said with uncharacteristic warmth. “I should have trusted your instincts from the start.”

Lily had sent Samuel so many inviting looks that even her father noticed. He clasped her hand in his. “He is the right man, Lily.”

She felt tears sting her eyes. “You have no idea.”

“Forgive us?”

Lily lifted her other hand to his face. He had aged since their estrangement. Although his disbelief had hurt her, she had become the stronger for standing her ground. Admittedly she’d had help from Samuel and his staff of characters. “None of us knew the entire truth,” she said, thinking of how she had misjudged Jonathan, convinced that he had committed murder. She would have testified against him.

Her brother lifted his champagne flute in a blatant bid to dispel the somber mood. “This is a wedding. All is well and forgiven.”

Lily’s mother started to cry. “I can’t help myself. I missed you so much. And I worried about you. . . .” She glanced up briefly, watching Samuel approach the table. “If only I had met him before you left, Lily,” she said in a quieter voice, “I would have known in my mother’s heart that you would be safe. Who do you suppose is wicked enough to spawn all the gossip about him?”

Lily looked up at Samuel, her eyes kindling in delight. “Whoever it was has quite an imagination.”

And everyone in the wedding party seemed content to leave it at that.

Early Summer

 

“W
hat is the only true religion?’ ” Samuel read from the manuscript, pacing before the dramatis personae gathered in the gallery.

“Compassion,” a voice answered.

He halted, his gaze seeking out the respondent. “I did
not
write that line. Who,” he demanded, stopping in front of Lily, “did?”

Bickerstaff flushed. “I confess, Your Grace.”

Samuel shook his head. “It is—”

“—quite brilliant,” Mrs. Halford said, “and I do not give my praise to just anyone.”

“Isn’t that the truth?” Bickerstaff said, then turned to acknowledge her. “But thank you, Mrs. Halford. It is a high compliment, coming from you.”

“It
is
a lovely line, Mr. Bickerstaff,” Lily said, sneaking a look at Samuel.

He drew a long breath. “May we continue? And the line . . . will stand. For now.”

Lily cleared her throat. “I have a question about this new character you have introduced. This Baroness de Beaucoup.”

“De
Beauville
.”

“Unless I am misreading, it says toward the end of the scene that the baroness invites Sir Renwick to her bed in exchange for a potion of eternal youth.”

Samuel nodded. “That is precisely what it says.”

“But . . .” Lily looked down at her pages. “The stage directions also indicate that they disappear into a tavern room together and do not come out until the next morning. Two lines later you refer to a castle.”

“What of it?” Samuel shrugged dismissively. “Scenery can be changed. This is for a libretto, not only a library.”